Dissident lance
corporal who refused to fight in Afghanistan claims support of soldiers

Joe Glenton, 27,
faces two years in jail for refusing to return to fight in Afghanistan.
Photograph: Andy Rain/EPA

A lance corporal who
faces jail for refusing to return to fight in Afghanistan has claimed
fellow soldiers are rallying to his cause.

Joe
Glenton, 27, who serves with the Royal Logistics Corps, returned to his
barracks near Oxford this week after speaking at a London peace rally in
defiance of orders.

After calling for a
complete withdrawal of troops, he feared a hostile reaction, but he said
that instead of being branded a coward he was applauded by fellow
soldiers.

"When I came back to
barracks I was wondering what they would throw at me, but the reaction
was heartening," he said. "There were handshakes and a lot of pats on
the back. Someone said I was saying what everyone else is thinking. I
heard that from several people.

"A lot of these guys
had just come back from tours of duty. Many senior people said they
respected me for following my convictions."

Glenton has become a
leading light in the Stop the War coalition and faces a court martial in
January. He could be jailed for two years for refusing to be redeployed
to Afghanistan after a tour of duty in 2006; he fled instead to
south-east Asia and Australia.

Some soldiers have
launched internet-based campaigns which describe him as "an
insubordinate disgrace". But his welcome among others appears to
indicate growing disquiet elsewhere in the armed forces at the purpose
of operations against the Taliban.

"We were told quite
specifically the different reasons we were there for: to provide
security, reconstruction, rebuilding infrastructure," he said. "But over
the course of my tour it became straightforward combat,'' he said.

''A lot of guys around
me didn't know why we were there. The confusion happening in the UK
today was evident among the troops three years ago."

This week, Corporal
Thomas Mason, a member of Black Watch, 3rd Battalion The Royal Regiment
of Scotland, died from wounds sustained in an explosion, bringing to 223
the number of British soldiers killed in Afghanistan since the war began
in 2001.

A further 940 British
soldiers have been wounded in action, including 290 seriously or very
seriously injured.

"The charade of the
election and the spike in the number of deaths has been explosive," said
Chris Nineham, a Stop the War campaigner. "The number of families
getting in touch with us has risen. There were virtually no soldiers
contacting us last year and now we are hearing from a couple a week who
want to get involved."

At a civic reception
to mark this week's homecoming of the 2 Rifle battle group from Helmand
province, which suffered 23 fatalities in six months, soldiers' parents
said they wanted the troops out.

"We went to a meeting
with the MoD in Salisbury before our son went to Afghanistan and the
army tried to tell us why they were going out there," said Stephen
Waterman, 54, a carpenter from Gillingham, Dorset, who welcomed home his
son Scott, 20.

"They said they were
going to help the Afghan army take control. I understood then, but not
once they had started fighting. When they were hit by the daisy -chain
attack on 10 July I thought: why are we out there?"

[In that single
incident, a succession of roadside bombs left five members of the group
dead and others injured on a mission intended to show the Afghan army
was in control.]

Waterman added: "Now,
I don't think we should be there. If we can't sort it out with the
number of troops we have, I don't think we ever will."

Sue Albery, 62, whose
daughter, Caroline, served as a Territorial Army medical technician,
said: "I believe it is our Vietnam. We are there to reflect our support
of US foreign policy. I am unconvinced there is a direct connection
between terrorism in this country and what is going on in Afghanistan."

Sharon Cruse, 45, a
nurse from Harlow, was reunited this week with her son, Rifleman Lee
Mulvey, 20. "I have been in bits about it," she said.

"Every morning I would
go on the internet looking at the news and the Ministry of Defence sites
and to see if there were any messages from him. There were times when I
didn't hear from him for five days and I was waiting for the call from
the MoD every day. I have a responsible job, but I was so preoccupied, I
forgot to go to work once. I just couldn't cope.

"I don't regret him
going out there because he has achieved something that few of us have,
but I don't think we will ever beat the Taliban. We will keep going out
there and we will keep losing young lads and they are babies. I don't
want him to go back."